Replying To Onion Breath:  "Not to put a downer on an otherwise great weekend but underage hurling results were very disappointing this weekend. We're definitely slipping and it seems to be getting a bit worse now each year. I thought last year's minors were disappointing having looked better on paper but at least they beat Kildare. Two bad defeats at minor already this year however and now the U/20 losing to Meath is cause for major concern. I know we don't have the numbers and all that, so going on winning runs every year is not on but we're getting used to getting beaten by likes of Kerry and now Meath who are two teams we'll be competing to stay ahead of in senior in the coming years."

Replying To Onion Breath:  "Fantastic to finally win a senior football trophy in Croker last night. We were by far the better team and took the lead inside about 15 seconds and Longford never once got a lead on us but we kept letting them back in to get level and always before a break in play, except for the end thankfully. In fairness we never become frustrated and kept driving at them despite once again leaving a load of goals behind us but thankfully it didn't matter last night. Great scenes in Croker and back in the town afterwards until very late. The squad seem very content. The all Carlow nature of it is contributing to that I feel.

Regarding the rest of the season we're now in bonus territory for me with the most important objective for this year having been met. Need to stay in Div 3 next year now and continue to strengthen the team at a higher level. I think that's really important.

The Wicklow game in the Leinster championship is coming very soon. A bit too soon for my liking. How often have we seen league winning teams fall flat in their first championship game a few weeks later. We should beat them as we were far superior in the league (but only won by 3 despite owning the game) but that was then and they'll probably be stung having messed up their own promotion. How they react to that I dunno they might go the other way I suppose especially now they're back recruiting players in from outside and doing so just before the last league game can't be good for squad morale. Be great to win and get a crack at the Dubs and see if we can rattle them like in 2017. That's as much as we can hope for in fairness as the Dubs on song are still very formidable. Tailteann cup we should get a favourable draw as we're among the number 2 seeds now but with the new format I dunno what that actually means. In the old format we would only have had one Div 3 side in our group so presumably it means we get a now Div 4 side in the first round?

Anyway congrats to Joe and his management team and all the players."

Replying To CARPS:  "I've been highlighting this for some time now. And I keep getting shot down by people saying we only need one or two off every youth team. Well, I'm sorry hurling doesn't work like that.

On our current trajectory, it's very possible we will slip back into the Christy Ring Cup in maybe four or five years time. Which would be a disaster.

Carlow hurling people need to have a serious conversation about the way things are headed. Especially given the rise of football will probably make that code more attractive to players in the coming years.

As for numbers, Onion, we had even fewer underage clubs when we went on those great runs in the 2000s and 2010s.

There has been a fall off in schools and in a couple of the key clubs."